Just how bad was Tim Burton's Superman movie going to be? Well, the Last Son of Krypton would've been wearing a light up disco suit. 'Nuff said.

Between Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Superman Returns, there were a number of movie attempts to bring The Man of Steel back into the movie theaters. Of the many attempted films, none has become more infamous than Superman Lives, the movie that had Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage attached to its production at one point. Some new concept art and photos from the film have recently surfaced on the Web; looking at the images, it was probably for the best that the movie died in development.

While the movie never got out of pre-production, art and costume prototypes were developed under the guidance of Steve Johnson, who's gradually been releasing concept art and photos of what his teams developed in preparation for the movie. With the current release from Johnson, it's been revealed that Doomsday was intended to be the movie's main villain ... though I'm not exactly in love with the concept art for that character.

Readers will probably also be confused by the "disco suit" in some of the photos. According to the proposed storyline, The Eradicator would wind up helping Superman over the course of the film and eventually turn itself into a suit of armor that would help Kal-El regain the powers he'd lost.

The script for Superman Lives was originally written by Kevin Smith, though the plot was dictated by producer Jon Peters, who earned a lot of notoriety over the years for his demands surrounding the movie (such as getting rid of the iconic blue-and-red costume because it was "too faggy"). After he left the project, Burton described the experience as one of the worst of his life, largely thanks to Peters: "I basically wasted a year. A year is a long time to be working with somebody that you don't really want to be working with."

Based on all these pieces of art, I can't say I blame Burton for leaving the project. It looks like Superman Lives would've been on par with Catwoman in terms of quality and faithfulness to the franchise.

In all seriousness, after reading the Wikipedia article on the issue I have to really ask, what drugs where they on when they came up with the ideas for the series?

Peters wanted Superman to wear an all-black suit, feeling the more traditional suit was "too faggy". He also did not want Superman to fly, arguing that Superman would "look like an overgrown Boy Scout." Smith wrote Superman flying as "a red-and-blue blur in flight, creating a sonic boom every time he flew." Peters also wanted Superman to fight a giant spider for the climactic showdown.

Oh and also this:

Peters and Warner Bros. also had Smith write a scene involving Brainiac fighting polar bears at the Fortress of Solitude, and Peters wanted Brainiac to give Lex Luthor a space dog, stating "Chewie's cuddly, man. You could make a toy out of him, so you've got to give me a dog." Peters' additional Star Wars similarities were due to the recent re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy, such as Peters' insistence that Brainiac's robot assistant L-Ron was to be voiced by Dwight Ewell, calling the character, "a gay R2-D2 with attitude".

Johnson's been releasing art and photos gradually for a while. This is a new batch that actually shows concept art for Doomsday, as well as what the final version of the disco suit would've looked like.

Johnson's been releasing art and photos gradually for a while. This is a new batch that actually shows concept art for Doomsday, as well as what the final version of the disco suit would've looked like.

After looking at the art for Doomsday, now, I can definitely see that how faithful they were trying to be to the source material (I say in a sarcastic manner). Granted, it is only concept art.

Since Tim Burton was suppose to be directing, who want's to bet there would have been a spiral staircase in the Daily Planet for no good reason?